The original action skill build, moves quickly, decimates everything, but with a jarring playstyle. Supernatural Amara SYNOP SIS The original action skill build, moves quickly, decimates everything, but with a jarring playstyle. INTRO This build was originally made to make the Downfall action skill viable, shortly after Gearbox introduced mayhem scaling in the summer of 2020. Downfall is 10/10 cool, but 2/10 in usefulness relative to Phaseslam and Tandava and Reverberation. Regardless, this build uses all of those action skills. And Downfall is actually somewhat strong, all things considered. The main problem is its cooldown, a whopping 47 seconds. In order to get around that, you need to self-dot and use the Golden Rule classmod. Yep, at heart, this is a Downfall Golden Rule build. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES The single point into Infusion is so that you always have a dot on yourself of the same element as your action skill element. More on this later. The three points into Unweave the Rainbow are there if you choose to use the Terror Cryo anoint and/or the Frozen Heart shield. ACTION SKILL Phaseslam or Tandava or Downfall. Reverberation for bosses if you use the Reverb technique. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever element is suited to the content you're facing, except for cryo. Because of the 1 point into Infusion, when you shoot your foot to dot yourself, you will cryo yourself and get slowed if you choose cryo. MAIN GUN 1 A low level Sellout pistol, anointed with either the Astral Projection 200% or Slam 300% anointment, depending on which action skill you have selected. Often, you will be swapping to the Guardian Angel to activate your action skill, but you don't need to; with these anoints on the Sellout, you can cast or slam without swapping and still do great damage. With this gun, you'll shoot your feet once or twice to dot yourself, triggering both the Golden Rule class mod and the Elemental Projector artifact. You can get a low level anointed Sellout by finding one in Earl's vending machine on Sanctuary, after completing the quest. I was able to get to the Sellout mission on Eden 6 at level 21 by killing as few enemies as possible, meaning the Sellouts I found in Earl's vendor were also level 21. You can find an anointed one in the vendor as low as level 10, if you have a level 10 friend that is willing to come and shop the vendor for you after you've completed the quest. Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. MAIN GUN 2 Guardian Angel, with the same Astral Projection and Slam anoints mentioned above, but optionally also one with a Terror Cryo anoint. This is for holding while you cast/slam if you want big, big damage. MAIN GUN 3 Face Puncher, with a Urad anointment. This is for delivering Groundbreaker from a distance. Our action skills will be building up tons of Groundbreaker, and you can make a quick swap to this gun to erase another enemy. The Urad anointment is sort of a last ditch effort to give you more Groundbreaker if shooting the Face Puncher while in FFYL. FFYL GUN Free Radical, with either Consec Hits or Urad anointment. CLASS MOD Golden Rule, preferably with points into Laid Bare first, Mindfulness second. Probably the most essential passive to have on it is splash damage radius. Other good passives: action skill cooldown rate, action skill damage, splash damage. The Golden Rule stacks a cooldown rate increase whenever you take damage, and this includes self damage and even self applied dot damage. So when you shoot your feet with the Sellout and dot yourself with multiple elements, you can loop your action skills fairly quickly, getting even Phaseslam to a total cooldown of about 3 seconds. SHIELD There's a few options here, but the strongest is a Re-Volter with the Action Skill Start anointment. Other fun options are the Frozen Heart and the Stinger, both with the same anoint, the latter when paired with the Static Charge artifact. If you want to use Downfall, an Action Skill Start Stop Gap is necessary so you don't get downed in mid-air. ARTIFACT Elemental Projector Victory Rush. Optionally, an Elemental Projector Static Charge if using the Stinger shield. The most important passive is an Area of Effect roll on either the 2nd or 3rd slot, which will also increase area radius. Other recommended passives: elemental damage, action skill cooldown rate, movement speed, melee damage (with stinger). GRENADE Mesmer or Hyperion Quasar with ASE 50% radiation bonus element. These are both great utility grenades if you need an extra second or two for your cooldown to end. The 50% radiation element is important, as that's another element to dot ourselves with when shooting the Sellout. This 50% damage will also get added to Groundbreaker. If using the Terror Cryo Guardian Angel, then have one of these grenades with ASE Apply Terror anointment. GAMEPLAY LOOP First, set your Sellout element (between fire and corrosive) to a different element than your action skill element. Why? Because if your action skill element is, say, fire, and your Sellout is also fire, when you shoot at your feet you'll only get a fire dot. But if you changed the Sellout to corrosive, you'll get both corrosive and fire dots, the first from the gun and the second from fire Infusion on the gun. That's two dots, doubling the effectiveness of the Golden Rule's cooldown. When your ASE 50% radiation anoint is procced, that's a third dot. If you're using the Re-Volter, that's a fourth dot. The Sellout WILL dot you within a shot or two, because it fires three projectiles, each with a base 72% status effect chance, which gets further boosted by Violent Tapestry. So don't spam it at your feet. Anyway, start off your encounters by firing a shot or two at your feet. If you want big damage, swap to the Guardian Angel and activate your action skill. If you don't care that much, just keep holding the Sellout. After your action skill, find a target for your Groundbreaker and either punch, slam, or Face Punch it. Repeat these steps as necessary - just make sure you stay dotted with the Sellout. Anima will keep those dots on you for a decent length of time. Remember, the dots are not only for your cooldown, but also for lots of Elemental Projector damage. NOTES - HEMOVOROUS None of the action skills used in this build make direct contact with Hemovorous. You can see this by trying to Phasecast at him; it just passes right through. Instead, splash him with Phaseslam. Go wild with it, actually. If you slam while there's a bunch of pods/eggs out, they'll explode and deal lots of damage to Hemo. Remnant will also do some work. If you notice Hemo or Vermi getting instantly phased by a huge chunk of damage, that means Remnant hit something; immediately swap to your Face Puncher to deliver all of that Groundbreaker damage somewhere. NOTES - GUARDIAN TAKEDOWN CRYSTALS This build has Glamour unlocked, so you can Tandava at Guardians during the crystals phase and they'll keep themselves occupied and let you charge your square. Just don't do this while swapping to the Guardian Angel, because you'll just kill them. Stay on the Sellout. NOTES - GUARDIAN ANGEL Believe it or not, you can actually do quite a bit of damage to your health with a dot from a level 21 Sellout. That's because the Guardian Angel increases all self damage by 6x. Don't linger holding the GA for long after using your action skill. You should be swapping to the Face Puncher and/or Sellout to keep your gameplay going anyway.

Non-DLC true-melee focused build. Stone Swan SYNOP SIS Non-DLC true-melee focused build. INTRO This build is meant to give the true melee experience to everybody, no DLC required. There's a lot of true melee tech with DLC items and the DLC skill tree, but there's still a lot of fun options with base game items. This build allows several different gameplay styles, some easier, some more challenging. It goes back to basics, calling on tech I've used throughout my time crafting true melee builds. It's the Stone Swan. Hey, that's me! Hopefully the name won't lead to any confusion... GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Typical green tree melee skills, red to Sustainment, and blue increases action skill damage and cryo efficiency. Remnant is a very helpful skill, but that will be picked up through your class mod. ACTION SKILL Phaseslam or Ties That Bind. Which of these you choose depends on how much challenge you want. Ties That Bind makes killing groups and controlling the field very simple, and is recommended for harder content such as true takedowns. Phaseslam is more thematic, and gives you Samsara stacks as a bonus. Either one of these action skills will proc Glamour on every enemy affected, allowing you to punch without much trouble. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever is suited to the content you are facing. PUNCHING GUN Psycho Stabber, with Terror Cryo anointment. The cryo bonus element will help freeze enemies through punching. It will also apply to Static Charge chains and your action skill (Phaseslam or Ties That Bind links). SHOOTING GUN Face Puncher, with Terror Cryo anointment. For flying enemies or anything else that seems out of reach or annoys you. This is a true-melee focused build, but do not feel bad about using tools such as the Face Puncher; true melee has a lot of obstacles. ALTERNATIVE PUNCHING GUN Psycho Stabber, with 150/90 anointment. This is for using with the Unleash The Dragon artifact. CLASS MOD Dragon, with at least one point into Remnant, and preferably the rest into Do Harm. Recommended passives: splash damage, splash damage radius, melee damage, action skill cooldown rate, action skill damage, weapon damage (for Face Puncher). Whenever you melee kill an enemy, all nearby enemies will have Glamour procced on them, basically taking all aggro off of you. The ability to get Remnant through this class mod is also very important. Remnant helps clear enemies and, after it lands, gives you lots of Groundbreaker damage for your next punch. Alternative class mod is the Phasezerker, with as many points into Anima as possible, for use with the Unleash The Dragon artifact. SHIELD There are a few options here, but the most important one is the Stinger, with ASE Apply Terror anointment. The Stinger is kind of a cop-out when it comes to true melee builds, but at least you're not using Action Skill Start on it. It will help you out when it breaks naturally, which occurs less often than you may think. Glamour controlling the battlefield means your Stinger is full, most of the time. The 50% melee damage increase that the Stinger gives while full is multiplicative with regular melee damage. Another option is the Nova Berner, preferably with Nova parts. The novas on this shield are quite strong, and when they go off they will either kill nearby enemies or at the very least give you lots of Groundbreaker damage. A third option is the Frozen Snowshoe. With this shield, you can slide into an enemy and proc a large nova, freezing enemies in the area. Not only is this a form of aggro relief and healing, it allows for a very powerful punch against those frozen enemies - great for pairing with the Unleash The Dragon artifact. The last option is the classic Brawler Ward. Pair with any artifact. Make sure to turn off Shield Reboot and Emergency Response when using this one. ARTIFACT Elemental Stone Static Charge. Cryo Stone is recommended, for more frequent freezing through punches, but you can also element match. Recommended passives: melee damage, action skill cooldown rate, area of effect damage (in the 2nd or 3rd slot), elemental damage, move speed. Alternative artifact would be the Unleash The Dragon. Use with the Phaseerker (that has Anima points) and a 150/90 Psycho Stabber for the greatest effect. Any of the shield options will work except the Nova Berner. GRENADE Fish Slap, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. This is your bossing tool, or just something to throw at a lone badass you don't feel like punching several times. This build is meant to be easy-going; don't be afraid to Fish. GAMEPLAY LOOP Start off using your action skill and then punch whatever is the most convenient target. Enemies will be affected by Glamour for a while, allowing you to basically roam freely. Throw a fish at extra tanky enemies. If you're using a Stinger, occasionally it will go off, obliterating anything near you. Face Puncher flying enemies. Note that Glamour has some weird effects. Grenades do not make contact with Glamour'd enemies, so if you grasp one and try to throw a Fish at it, the Fish will just pass right through. Either splash a linked enemy on the ground, or wait for Grasp to end and splash the original enemy. Or just punch the grasped enemy. Glamour will also cause some flying enemies to initiate an aerial battle with each other, making them fly high up and far apart. You may have to use the Face Puncher to take them out.

Tips for understanding and building with Amara's Blue Tree at endgame. Blue Tree This guide will help you understand the quirks and uses of each of Amara's skills, so that perhaps you can do some build crafting of your own. In this section, we cover the blue (Mystical Assault) tree. DO HARM Very powerful action skill damage increase. It gets further increased in effectiveness by Awakening further down the tree, and the capstone Avatar allows you to stack more Do Harm at a time. This increases all things that are action skill damage, not just your action skills themselves. This includes Revelation, Remnant, Ties That Bind links, Unweave The Rainbow, Body & Mind, Free The Soul, Catharsis, and Ice Spiker. FAST HANDS Very useful, always-on reload and swap speed. Always take this if you're doing anything with guns at all. VIOLENT TAPESTRY Great utility skill, at the very least useful for 1 point simply for the ability to gain Rush stacks by applying a status effect. Even with a Phasezerker class mod, you can keep your stacks topped up very easily with this skill. If you need to be applying status effects in general, whether its to enemies or to yourself, it's worth investing some points into this skill. It is further increased in effectiveness by Awakening. Violent Tapestry also increases cryo efficiency, making it an extremely important skill for cryo-focused builds. Amara does have a lot of synergy with cryo, either directly or indirectly through melee-related skills. ALACRITY Always worth at least 1 point in a gun build. A good place to dump points if you need to go further down the tree. TRANSCEND Very strong critical hit damage increase, especially because it can be stacked twice with Avatar. Great for boss melts when the boss has an accessible crit spot. A purple Mantis class mod can give you an extra three points into this skill making those boss melts go even faster. This skill can also be taken for builds that crit in unconventional ways, such as Ruby Swan or any Spark Plug build. RESTLESS When Expedite is available, this skill is pretty low value. Otherwise, it can be a points dump if you don't need the reload speed from Alacrity or anything above it. ASCENDANT Always taken if you're going at all deep into blue tree. Increasing the effectiveness of augments like Glamour, Expedite, and Stillness of Mind is game changing for how a build can play and flow. FROM REST This skill is hit or miss, depending on the type of guns you are using. If going for a conventional gun build, I would always recommend putting at least 2 points here. Lots of Maliwan weapons feel sluggish without this skill, because of their charge time. If you're strapped for points in this tree, usually Wrath is taken over this skill, but if you have plenty of other gun damage sources (such as Spiritual Driver or a 250% Phasecast gun damage anointment), this can be prioritized over Wrath. LAID BARE Very powerful damage increasing skill. Always taken if you're this far down the tree, and some builds go into blue tree simply to get Laid Bare , because it applies to everything. WRATH Good gun damage increase, nothing more to it. REMNANT Extremely powerful skill. Always take it if you're this far, and you never need more than one point into it. Some builds even require you to get this skill on a class mod. Remnant gets your overkill damage as its base, then gets a x31 multiplier on Mayhem 10/11, and then gets action skill damage, elemental damage, splash damage, etc. It will always target the enemy closest to you, if that enemy is reachable and still existant by the time it gets there. You may have seen some raid boss 1 shots with Remnant. Yes, it's that powerful. AWAKENING If you need to be investing in Do Harm and/or Violent Tapestry, then you also need to be investing in Awakening, if you get this far down the tree. This skill also increases the effectiveness of the damage reduction on the Stone class mod. Having 6/3 Awakening with the Stone gives you significant tankiness. AVATAR Perhaps the most important skill in all of Amara's skill trees. The ability to get twice the amount of Do Harm or Violent Tapestry when you use your action skill can make or break many builds. It also refunds you half of your converted Rush stacks if your action skill activation killed an enemy. And of course, the ability to activate your action skill twice in a row is huge.

Tediore chuckin' Amara. Mother chucker. Mother Chuckin' Amara SYNOPSIS Tediore chuckin' Amara. Mother chucker. INTRO Inspired long ago by LessHandsomeJack's Yeetbot build, this is a Tediore chucking build that went through many iterations and many failures, especially after the undeserved 50% nerf to Tediore chucks. This is as consistent and strong a Tediore Amara can be. It's mostly the Anarchy show, at least for high end content. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES This is a radiation only build, so Clear The Mind is essential. This is also a Spiritual Driver build, so Mindfulness is essential. Sustainment is necessary to stay alive, and that leaves not much room for blue tree. Tediore chucks can crit, though, so Transcend is a good investment. ACTION SKILL Light Fantastic. Optionally Shooting Star to help with bossing. The long duration of Phaseflare-type skills is important for anointment uptime. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Always corrosive. This is mostly because a corrosive self-dot from the Spiritual Driver will last the longest and therefore keep up your Mindfulness stacks the longest. Further, most strong enemies are armored, and that's radiation's worst matchup. MAIN GUN Anarchy, x18, in radiation, with either Consecutive Hits or 150/90 anointment. The highest chuck damage rad Anarchy is 3185x18 with a mag size of 11. The per-shot damage is a little less than a x20 Anarchy, but the higher mag size means more chuck damage, especially when factoring in mag size increases. The base of the chuck damage formula is card damage * pellets * ammo left in mag. Keep in mind the Anarchy's quirks. Interrupting your reload animation in any way makes you lose your stacks. If you've started and haven't fully finished your reload and interrupt it with throwing a grenade, using your action skill, mantling, getting downed, etc., then your stacks are gone. You can build up your stacks again while in combat, but just be aware of what might cause your damage to suddenly drop off. OTHER RADIATION TEDIORE GUNS Needle Gun, with Consecutive Hits or 150/90 anointment. This is the second best chucking gun, after the Anarchy. The Horizon, x9, 5 mag, with Consecutive Hits, is noticeably weaker, but very fun to toss around enemies with. Shoot the reload bubble while it's soaring through the air and it will create a huge singularity, then explode. Bangarang, with Consecutive Hits anointment. Also somewhat weak, but fun to use if you don't mind lots of flashing lights. Purple Keenfire and Sureshot Tediores, with Consecutive Hits anointment. Look for homing MIRV parts, as other parts on Tediores have much weaker chuck damage. The Handsome Jackhammer is really strong, and in a corrosive variant is great for bossing if you keep your distance from it. Deviating from Tediore a little bit, a couple other guns that work decently with this build are a radiation Backburner, Plaguebearer, and Slow Hand with Consecutive Hits anointment. FFYL GUN A fully stacked Anarchy could get you up from FFYL, but there are reasons you may not have that available. A Free Radical or Plasma Coil with Consecutive Hits is a reliable FFYL weapon. CLASS MOD Spiritual Driver, with as many points into Mindfulness as possible. Recommended anointments: grenade damage (Tediore chucks get grenade damage), splash damage, splash damage radius, action skill cooldown rate, weapon damage, mag size. Tediore chucks get gun damage bonuses at the time the chuck occurs. So if you run fast and chuck, the Spiritual Driver will greatly increase the damage of the explosion. Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. SHIELD Red Suit, with ASE 50% radiation bonus element. This shield will prevent you from dying to your own Tediore chucks, and will allow you throw them with reckless abandon and increase their radius through splash radius passives. It will also shield you from your own Backburner and Plaguebearer shots, if you're using those guns. A Power Charge augment or two on this shield is beneficial. ARTIFACT Cutpurse Victory Rush. Throwing a Fish Slap with a Cutpurse will keep up your ammo reserves, allowing you to chuck endlessly. Recommended passives: grenade damage, area of effect damage in the 2nd or 3rd slot (which will also increase area radius), action skill cooldown rate, radiation damage, mag size, move speed. A second recommended artifact is an Elemental Projector Victory Rush. This can be swapped in for boss fights where you plan on killing the boss before running out of reserves. Throw a Fish at your foot to dot yourself and proc it. If you do run out of ammo before the fight is over, you can always briefly swap in the Cutpurse to refill. In the gameplay video above, all footage was taken with the Cutpurse equipped, except for the Hemovorous fight, for which the Elemental Projector was used. Or you can run the Elemental Projector most of the time by equipping a different weapon type in each slot, and simply swap when you run out of ammo for one type. Just remember that if you swap away from the Anarchy, it is no longer stacked. GRENADE Fish Slap, in radiation, with ASA 150% grenade damage anointment. This anointment will greatly increase your chuck damage when Light Fantastic is active, as chucks get grenade damage. The Fish itself will be used to proc Cutpurse and restore your ammo reserves. It can also be thrown at your feet to dot yourself and get stacks of Mindfulness outside of an action skill activation. The Fish in radiation will not be able to hurt you, because of the Red Suit. If running the Elemental Projector, something like a radiation Lightspeed for throwing at your feet will more reliably proc a radiation dot. GAMEPLAY LOOP Summon Light Fantastic, shoot your gun once, make sure you're moving really fast, and then chuck. Shoot your chuck's target bubble if it has one. Chuck again. The faster you move while the gun leaves your hands, the more damage it will do when it explodes. Throw Fish at enemies every so often to replenish your ammo. If you've lost Mindfulness stacks, throw Fish at your feet until you're dotted. Light Fantastic is often not used for damage. Just activate it and forget it; go about chucking. Occasionally, though, it will find a way to kill some enemies and become very strong, in which case you can pay attention to it and direct it around. For tankier bosses such as Scourge, the Shooting Star variant of Phaseflare can help you out, provided you buff it up with a few punches. There's also the Elemental Projector. As long as you're chucking, Sustainment will do a great job of keeping you alive. You can be very aggressive with this build if you keep performing actions. If you're using the Anarchy, pre-stack it at the ammo vendor. Be careful not to ever interrupt its reload animation until it is fully complete, otherwise you lose your stacks. You can rebuild stacks while in combat, if necessary.

The try-hard grenade build. Boomfist SYNOPSIS The try-hard grenade build. INTRO Want to see the Fastball hit for hundreds of millions of damage? Want to make the Lightspeed seem like it's double dipping as it chews through raid boss HP bars? Want to be a little try-hard about making grenades really strong? This is the build for you. Unlike the other grenade build on this site, Phase Yeet , this build is very active. Also unlike that build, this one is rather easy to understand. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Over-specced into blue, nothing in green. Don't worry, Blight Tiger is not necessary. Max Violent Tapestry for the occasional freeze via Terror Cryo. ACTION SKILL Fist Over Matter. Grenades go *boom*, Fist Over Matter goes.... *fist*? But also *boom*. Whatever, don't think too hard about it. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Either fire or shock. The actual element you need to worry about is that of your grenade, which will be either fire, shock, or corrosive. If you can match your action skill element to your grenade (i.e., fire or shock), then great. If your grenade is corrosive, then your action skill element should be whatever is second best for the content you're up against. Fire is almost always gonna be second best, the exception being when you're fighting Guardians. Action skill augment is either Expedite or Allure. The former for more Fist Over Matter activations, the latter for more aggro-control / defense. Dealer's choice. MAIN GUN Guardian Angel, with Terror Cryo anointment. SWAP GUN 1 Face Puncher, with Melee Apply Terror anointment. You'll be regularly swapping to this to keep terror stacks up (and sometimes deliver Groundbreaker). SWAP GUN 2 Low level Sellout. Anointment not necessary. You will also be regularly swapping to this to keep yourself dotted, which activates Elemental Projector, Burn Both Ends, and the Golden Rule class mod. Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. FFYL GUN Free Radical with Consecutive Hits or Terror Cryo anointment. CLASS MOD Golden Rule, with points into both Laid Bare and Mindfulness being very helpful. Normally, Fist Over Matter is a clunky action skill because of its duration and long cooldown. This class mod (and self-dotting with the Sellout) help shorten that cooldown substantially. Recommended passives: grenade damage, splash damage, action skill damage, mag size, splash radius, grenade radius, action skill cooldown rate, Hyperion weapon critical hit damage (for when the Lightspeed crits while you're holding the Guardian Angel). SHIELD Re-Volter, with Terror Health Regen anointment. Even though this build has Sustainment, and plenty of elemental damage instances with Fist Over Matter and your grenades, it's still a bit squishy. Burn Both Ends makes enemies *very* angry. Additionally, your Sellout self-dot will be steadily eating away at your HP and shield, because holding the Guardian Angel will boost that damage x6. I very highly recommend finding a Re-Volter with at least one shield charge augment. That way, you can keep reactivating its effect by picking up a shield charge, which allows your self-dot to immediately deplete the shield again, refreshing the Re-Volter bonus. This is as opposed to relying on the Shield Reboot Guardian Rank perk, which requires a kill. ARTIFACT Elemental Projector Victory Rush. The Elemental Projector is the more important part, here, so a purple one with good passives will be much more effective than a Vic Rush with bad passives. This artifact will boost the damage of your grenade's element, your Re-Volter bonus element, and the element of your Fist Over Matter. Recommended passives: grenade damage, area damage in 2nd or 3rd slot, fire/shock/corrosive damage, mag size, move speed, action skill cooldown rate. GRENADES The only downside to this build is that the grenade options are somewhat limited. The upside is that the options we do have are extremely strong. Any of the following grenades in fire, shock, and/or corrosive, with the Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment: Fastball, Lightspeed, double or triple sticky Hyperion Longbow, Ghast Call, Doc Hina's Miracle Bomb. A purple grenade with just a single sticky part can raid boss if you keep your distance well enough for max Guardian Angel bonus. A shock Hex can do low level content. GAMEPLAY LOOP Choose a grenade of the appropriate element for the content you are facing. Match your action skill element to it if you can, otherwise choose the 2nd best option between fire and shock. Set your Sellout to corrosive (it should *always* be set to corrosive on this build). Then, in any order, grasp an enemy, shoot an enemy with your Face Puncher to generate terror, and dot yourself with the Sellout. At that point you're ready to swap to the Guardian Angel and start chucking grenades. In the midst of battle, do whatever needs doing - if your self-dot is running out, swap to the Sellout and re-up it. If Fist Over Matter is cooled down, go ahead and grasp something. Shoot the Face Puncher regularly to keep up terror. You get the idea. Whenever you aren't doing those things, you should be chucking grenades with the Guardian Angel. The chaos created by your grenades, Fist Over Matter, and Remnant should start wiping everything out. Even vs raid bosses, you don't need to switch off the Lightspeed if you don't want to, despite the Ghast Call and double/triple sticky Longbow being stronger. Hemo, for example, is totally pwned by Fist Over Matter. The constant re-depleting of your shield as you pick up shield charges may be a little jarring and make you think you're being attacked when you aren't. You'll get used to it. NOTES - MAYHEM 10/11 This build requires you to play on Mayhem 10 with the More Than Okay Boomer easy modifier, so you don't run out of grenades.

Tips for recovering from Fight For Your Life (FFYL) as Amara at endgame. FFYL Amara loses a lot of her buffs when going into FFYL, including Do Harm stacks, the Killstack anointment, and self-dots. Here are some tips to help you get up if you've gone down. HAVE A GOOD FFYL GUN This is the most important measure against death. Good FFYL guns for Amara are basically guns that are powerful on their own. Prime examples are the Free Radical and the Plasma Coil. Other strong contenders are the Backburner, the Plaguebearer, and the Sand Hawk. The Backburner and Plaguebearer both have a vortex/singularity effect, which can be useful for keeping enemies in place, preventing them from running away. Another less-well-known gun is the Ember's Purge. This gun works well for grounded enemies. When shooting an enemy, there's a random chance a fire puddle will appear beneath them, and this puddle does massive damage to anything standing in it. If you're a melee build and have a Static Charge, a Face Puncher is a great FFYL weapon. (It's even better if Body & Mind is active.) Static Charge will chain to nearby enemies, building up Groundbreaker for every Face Puncher shot. SHOOT THE GUARDIAN ANGEL Lots of builds use the Guardian Angel to buff their attacks, and this gun is actually an amazing FFYL gun if you're also specced Indiscriminate. The Guardian Angel's damage bonus will get double dipped by Indiscriminate. So you can repeatedly fire at a single enemy in front of you, and the ricochets will find enemies off to the side and obliterate them. The Guardian Angel is also useful if you have any decent strength dots on enemies when you go down, as it will increase the damage of those dots. You can get decent dots even without building for them if you're using high-dot weapons like the Free Radical or Plasma Coil or Kickcharger. FFYL GUN ANOINTMENT Take care in choosing the anointment for your FFYL gun. Most of the time, it's between Consecutive Hits and Urad. Consecutive Hits is useful because Amara won't have a lot of gun damage while in FFYL. But Urad can be just as effective. If you're specced into Sustainment, beware that you can lifesteal while in FFYL. Your health might not be visible, but it's still there, and you can lifesteal out of Urad, deactivating the anoint while you're still in FFYL. In general, I choose Urad, unless I'm specced Sustainment, in which case I choose Consecutive Hits. USE GROUNDBREAKER When shooting an enemy while in FFYL, if you have Indiscriminate specced, you often don't need to finish an enemy off with your gun. Indiscriminate builds lots of Groundbreaker damage from the other enemies. You can get the enemy in front of you most of the way down, and punch your way through the rest. Be careful, though: if you have to crawl to close the distance to connect a punch, you may inadvertently decrease your time in FFYL by losing the Dead Man Walking Guardian Rank perk. It's a balancing act. USE YOUR MINIMAP The instant you get put into FFYL, check your minimap for the most likely target. You should not be spending time in FFYL looking for an enemy to shoot. This can save you precious seconds. Ping the enemy you want to kill to highlight them, so you can follow them in case they become obscured. PREDICT YOUR FFYL If you know you are in a sticky situation you can't get out of, pre throwing a grenade or Fish Slap or grasping an enemy can set you up to recover quickly. For example, if you're mid-reload and a group of enemies starts attacking, but your Ties That Bind is availble, don't wait to finish the reload. Instead, grasp an enemy, then go down. The Lead Or Alive Guardian Rank perk will reload your guns for you, and you'll have an easy time killing enemies caught in Ties That Bind. There's also the old Borderlands trick where, in a tough encounter, you leave a weak enemy or two alive for easy Second Winding.

Tips for best utilizing the powerful Groundbreaker Guardian Rank perk. Groundbreaker Groundbreaker is a kind of damage just like any other, and therefore can receive some bonuses and be buffed, beyond whatever damage you used to build it up in the first place. Groundbreaker can be delivered by melee or slam, and the only method by which it can be applied to multiple targets is via ground slamming. Even the Stinger nova, if it hits mulitple enemies, will only deliver Groundbreaker to one of them. Bonus elements apply to Groundbreaker, such as the ASE 50% bonus elements and Urad and Re-Volter. Since there is no mayhem scaling involved with Groundbreaker, all of these bonus elements properly scale. The Guardian Angel's damage bonus also applies to Groundbreaker, which is a very strong synergy when applying Groundbreaker at a distance and to multiple enemies with a ground slam. Other global bonuses apply, such as V1 from Victory Rush and the bonus from Burn Both Ends.

Traditional red tree/blue tree Ties That Bind gun build, with a couple small twists. Phasewalker SYNOPSIS Traditional red tree/blue tree Ties That Bind gun build, with a couple small twists. INTRO I avoided making a generic red/blue Ties That Bind build for a long time, because I didn't have anything to add to the concept. After exploring gun dots , I realized I could add a little flair to it. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES The way this build deviates from other builds is you max Anima and Unweave the Rainbow. Gun dots are strong, and getting up to 10 points in Anima really lets you fire and forget, and also increases the effectiveness of Radsplosions. And if you choose to use cryo guns, which don't apply a dot, you are rewarded by Unweave the Rainbow. This build also leans into action skill damage, allowing actions skills outside of Ties That Bind to do work. ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. Optionally Reverberation, Tandava, or Phaseslam, all of which will deal plenty of damage on their own, and can be matched with a 250% Phasecast or 300% Phaseslam gun damage anointment on your guns for bossing. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever is suited to your content, keeping in mind that 40% of your gun's damage is changed via Infusion and 18% is a bonus element from Forceful Expression. Also note that if cryo is your action skill element, Anima breaks completely and has no effect. So to take advantage of Unweave the Rainbow and also get juicy dots and radsplosions from bonus elements, use cryo guns and have your action skill element set to something else. GUNS Any decent or strong gun, with Killstack or Consecutive Hits anointment. This build and Ties That Bind allows for quite a variety. Some of my favorites: Hellwalker, Free Radical, Crit, Sand Hawk, Bird of Prey, Major Kong, Yellowcake, Guardian Angel, Reflux, Plaguebearer, Kaoson, D.N.A., Kickcharger, Clairvoyance, Beacon, Flipper, Rowan's Call, King's/Queen's Call. Yes, you can actually shoot the Guardian Angel; it's very effective with Ties That Bind and Indiscriminate. For bossing, any of the strongest guns with a 250% Phasecast or 300% Phaseslam gun damage anointment. OPTIONAL SWAP GUN Guardian Angel, with Killstack anointment. The Killstack anointment is the only anointment that attaches to the player instead of the gun, so you can swap guns freely and the stacks will still be there, decaying over time like normal. This allows you to run Reverberation or Tandava or Phaseslam with the Killstack anointment - swap to the Guardian Angel to buff those action skills, and any kills you get will add to your Killstacks. Swap back to your gun to shoot enemies and your stacks will keep going. OPTIONAL BOSSING GUN Guardian Angel, with Astral Projection or Slam damage anointment. For direct bossing damage with just your action skill. Try the special Reverberation technique for even more damage. CLASS MOD Phasezerker, with as many points into Anima as possible. Recommended passives: weapon damage, action skill cooldown rate, splash damage, splash damage radius, weapon type damage, mag size, action skill damage. This is also a build where the Kensei fits in nicely. Utilize Unweave the Rainbow during mobbing by having splash guns that are cryo or having your action skill element attuned to cryo. During bossing, the Kensei damage itself helps quite a lot, so element-match as best as you can. Same anointment philosophy: Killstack or Consec Hits if using Grasp, 250% Cast Gun Damage if using Reverberation. Tandava and Phaseslam are not recommended with the Kensei because of their longer cooldown. SHIELD Re-Volter, with Action Skill Start. Perfect for buffing your guns and your action skills. ARTIFACT Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge with a mag size passive. Other options are an Atom Balm Victory Rush for greater radsplosions, or a Snowdrift Victory Rush for better movement. Recommended passives on these two artifacts: action skill cooldown rate, area of effect damage in the 2nd or 3rd slot (which will also increase area radius), elemental damage, weapon type damage. GRENADE Whatever you find useful, with ASE 50% radiation anointment. If you're bossing, change this element to match the boss, but for general use, the radsplosions enabled by having bonus radiation damage are very useful. Utility grenades: It's Piss, Hyperion Quasar (non sticky), Mesmer. Damage grenades, especially if holding the Guardian Angel: Lightspeed, Doc Hina's Miracle Bomb. GAMEPLAY LOOP Grasp, shoot, and destroy. If you are wanting to deal damage with action skills or grenades, swap to Guardian Angel to perform those actions, then swap back to guns and start blastin'. This is probably the most straightforward Amara gun build, even with the few twists. This sort of build can run into roadblocks when bossing or raid bossing. Either use Guardian Angel anointed to buff your Reverb or Phaseslam, or use a 250% Phasecast or 300% Phaseslam gun damage anoint on your guns. You can also cheese most bosses with Remnant: hold the Guardian Angel, Reverb a nearby mob, and Remnant will fly toward the closest enemy to you. If it hits the boss, the boss gets deleted. If it hits another enemy, Groundbreaker the boss.

Tips for conquering the Guardian Takedown as Amara. Guardian Takedown The Guardian Takedown is one of the best designed pieces of content Gearbox has ever made, in my opinion. However, its difficulty is a turnoff for many. Hopefully, by helping you learn the content, you too can spend more time there and enjoy it. Here are some tips for the Guardian Takedown, in no particular order. CRYSTAL PHASES The objective during the crystal phases is to charge the crystals before they drain and detonate. You actually don't need to kill any enemies. Now, most builds have no other solution to the enemies the game throws at you than to kill them. But there are many tactics, other than killing, for preventing Guardians from entering the charging square. 1. The Mesmer grenade basically makes the Guardians fight each other and ignore you, allowing you to charge the crystal in peace. The enemies that get damaged by this grenade briefly turn to allies, and all nearby enemies, even if untouched by the grenade, will start attacking their new foes. This piece of gear is less effective if you are specced Burn Both Ends, where only the enemies directly damaged by the grenade stop attacking, and most other enemies still come after you. 2. If you have a build that has both Glamour and Ties That Bind unlocked, you can simply grasp a group with that augment, and any enemy touched by the linkage will become an ally for a period of time. This is the same effect as the Mesmer grenade. 3. Alternatively, you can use Ties That Bind with Stillness of Mind to lock the first set of enemies in the air. Then, if you have Avatar, do it again when your first grasp ends. This will take you most of the way to a full crystal charge. You can drag out this tactic longer by waiting to execute your first grasp until the first wave is getting close to you. Do NOT damage the enemies, just dodge their attacks. If they have any damage over time affecting them, they will fall out of the Stillness bubble. 4. A shield with a Safe Space part can send enemies near you ragdolling through the air, completely removing them as a threat until they land and recover. The Band of Sitorak shield is great for this. It can even send Guardians to their death during the second crystals phase. This is not the most applicable tactic, as most builds need a shield that doesn't come with Safe Space, but it's an option. You can use these methods, in combination with other tips in this guide, to reliably get through the crystals sections. Enemies don't necessarily need to be killed, just controlled. And if you control the first wave well enough, no more will spawn. ELIMINATING KNOCKBACK One of the most annoying ways to die in the Guardian Takedown is by being knocked off of an edge by an enemy. And your own movement speed and momentum can exacerbate this problem. So if you're running a fast build, you can feel extra punished. Thankfully, there's a way to eliminate enemy knockback. Any time you punch crystals with the Eridian Resonator, that is, when this animation happens: knockback Your ability to be knocked back ceases. Watch: The above video also demonstrates a way to undo this and allow yourself to be knocked back again: by meleeing an enemy. Therefore, if you accidentally melee an enemy, you must find another crystal to punch to become grounded again. True melee builds or builds that punch a lot for Groundbreaker application will not find much use in this trick, because the effect will constantly be reset. At least Groundbreaker can still be applied via groundslam, which is a better way to apply it anyway, because then it hits a whole area instead of just one enemy. If you want to rocket jump in the Guardian Takedown, this trick prevents the rocket knockback. You must find an enemy to melee if you want to reset it and regain the ability to rocket jump. Another demonstration - watch as I can stand at the very edge of the Anathema platform and fail to get knocked off: I've catalogued all possible crystal locations that I've found in the Guardian Takedown. This resource is for both finding your first crystal to activate this trick, as well as finding further crystal locations in case you have accidentally reset the trick by meleeing an enemy. Click the interactive map below to see all crystal locations. Only a random subset of locations spawn each time you load into Minos Prime. And of those that spawn, some may be invisible (but can still be melee'd while invisible, or can be seen by equipping the Mysterious Artifact). If you find a location not shown on the map, send a screenshot and I'll add it! Always Be Jumping ALWAYS BE JUM PING (well not always...) Two of the Guardian types, Spectres and Diadems, have their AI confused while you are airborne. The Spectres are the ones that have blades on their arms and run directly for you and melee you. However, if you're in the air, they stop their advance and throw a ranged attack at you. If you're constantly jumping, they will only advance forward very briefly when you touch the ground. See below: This is especially useful during the crystal phases of the Guardian Takedown, but can also be used for general damage relief throughout the entire takedown. This is why you see all of the speedrunners constantly jumping during the crystal phases. If you get overrun, this tactic obviously doesn't mean much anymore, but it's something you can use to prevent being overrun. Diadems are a bit more complicated. They basically lose sight of you entirely while you're in the air, and start following a predetermined path. They turn again toward you when you land. During the crystals, their predetermined path is always toward the crystal they're spawning next to, so jumping does not prevent them from approaching your crystal - the Diadem must be dealt with. But Diadems that are spawning for a different crystal than the one you're on can be prevented from finding you by constantly jumping. See below: And this is why during those same speedruns you see the player remain grounded during the Scourge fight when he summons Diadems, so that the Diadems converge around Scourge. Otherwise, they would wander in all sorts of directions and be hard to detonate. In general, jumping is a very effective form of aggro relief during the whole takedown, and it's made easier by the fact that it's in low gravity. HOLD THE POINT Another crystal phase tactic is to hold the point, or the front of the boundary of your crystal's box. That way, as enemies approach and attack you from the from the front, they stay outside of the boundary, while you remain inside. You can use this tactic (in addition to the jumping tactic above) at the beginning of crystals to buy lots of time. When using this tactic, the Wraith Guardians, the ones with the staff that sometimes leap or pole vault toward you, will land in front of you. They will remain outside of the box, and then most of the time they either immediately walk backwards or flip backwards. Their attack doesn't do much damage, and they end up being completely non-threating to you charging your crystal. See below: Obviously, if things have gotten out of control, this tactic can be abandoned, but it's one more tool you can use to prevent things from getting out of control in the first place. PHASEGRASP AND DIADEMS Do not Phasegrasp a Diadem that has begun it's self-destruct animation. If it dies while grasped, your grasp will be bugged and remain unavailable for a couple minutes. You can grasp a Diadem that has not started this animation, and shoot and kill it like normal. CRIT SPOTS Most people are unaware of how to crit the Nekrotafeyo creatures and/or the Guardians. I believe this prevents people from using guns such as sniper rifles during this takedown, and in general enjoying the content. Below, I will outline the crit spots of the various enemy types: Three of the creature types, Vandas, Mantas, and Djira, have the same type of crit spot: on the tip of their nose. This crit spot actually extends onto the top of their nose just a little bit, so a reliable way to hit it is to aim just above the tip. The Korax's tail spike is their crit spot. The Mantakores have big, flashy, flower face as a crit spot. Note, though, that when Phasegrasping a Mantakore, their entire body rotates a little bit relative to their position on the ground, and their face, when lifted, will be about 90 degrees to your left. This is important for positioning yourself before grasping a Mantakore. All Guardians have the same general crit area, a head that sits low between the shoulders. Note that since it does not stick out above the shoulders, you cannot crit them from behind. Also note that, when Phasegrasped, the Seras cover the lower part of their face with their arms. They can still be critted on the top half of their head. SERA LASER The Flying Sera Guardians have a dangerous laser attack, and it can be especially painful during the crystals phases, where there isn't much room to maneuver. They can be knocked out of this attack either with melee (including the Face Puncher) or by critting them. ANATHEMA MOBS The Anathema fight spawns mobs around the arena every phase of the fight. Any mobs that survive Anathema's exploding bubble have radiation applied to them. As you may know, when you irradiate an enemy, they have an aura that damages nearby enemies with radiation. Well, when an enemy (Anathema) applies a radiation status to another enemy (the mobs that survive the bubble), the radiation aura on them now damages you . And that radiation aura is strong, relative to player health. When those irradiated mobs are close to you, you will get health gated. This is instant FFYL for Deathless builds. If you have a strong dot on yourself, you can also go down that way after being health gated. There's no foolproof solution to this. Simply kill and avoid them as best you can if you have a fragile build. WATCH YOUR FACE There are many things that fly towards you suddenly in this takedown, including projectiles launched from mobs, mobs themselves, dead bodies and body parts of mobs. Every one of these things, if it gets in your face, can make you splash and down yourself if you're using a splash weapon. Always be moving, strafing, dodging to prevent this from happening. HAVE A GOOD FFYL WEAPON See the Tips section on FFYL here.

Beginner-friendly Ties That Bind gun build that is very Ties That Bind gun build. Possibly even the most Ties That Bind gun build. Acidwolf SYNOPSIS Beginner-friendly Ties That Bind gun build that is very Ties That Bind gun build. Possibly even the most Ties That Bind gun build. INTRO When facing off against raid bosses, most Amara gun builds change something, like switching to a Phasecast action skill and Phasecast anointed gun. Or a Phaseflare action skill and a Psychostabber. Or swapping to the Guardian Angel and throwing a fish, perhaps also with Unleash the Dragon. Or whatever else. In contrast, this build leans so hard into Amara's multi-target abilities that it *becomes* the raid bossing solution. Using Ties That Bind to kill a boss through a second enemy isn't anything new. What's new is the strength with which this build does it. This isn't just: "Ties That Bind Wotan as he splits to kill both halves instantly." This is also: "Ties That Bind True Hag of Fervor (and a tink) and a single Beacon projectile produces a Remnant that hits Hag for hundreds of billions." This is: "Every Indiscriminate ricochet hits for hundreds of millions instead of just 10 or 20 million." If you're a real OG, the damage philosophy is very similar to Pain Amp Amara , even though that isn't a gun build. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES This skill tree isn't too far off from a typical red/blue TTB gun build. However, there are a few very deliberate omissions and inclusions. Remnant, Ties That Bind, and Indiscriminate are all double-dipping skills. That means that their damage is based on a different, initial source of damage, and then they get their own damage increases as well. (That initial source in this build is our guns.) So to increase the effectiveness of these three skills, we need to choose damage increases that affect both the initial source and these skills directly for maximum double-dipping effect. All three skills double dip elemental damage, for example, if you're using an elemental gun. If you use a non-elemental gun, then it's just a single dip, a normal damage increase. Remnant and Indiscriminate double dip splash damage if you're using a splash gun. That's why we spend the five points in Arms Deal - for more splash damage. It's why there's zero Infusion points - the Infused portion of a gun's damage does not get splash bonuses. Action skill damage is maxed through Do Harm and Awakening, because Ties That Bind link and Remnant damage is increased by action skill damage. ACTION SKILL Ties That Bind. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Always Corrosive. This is a single element build. As for why, see the artifact section. GUNS Anything splash and corrosive that can roll the ASE 125% splash anoint. Effective weapons that fit that criteria: Beacon, Recursion, Trevonator, Gargoyle, Major Kong, Anarchy, Contained Blast, Fearmonger, Hive, Plaguebearer, Backburner. Those last three don't really Indiscriminate, but they're strong enough that it doesn't matter. You can use some other strong corrosive splash guns that can't roll the splash anoint: Kaoson, Soulrender, Sand Hawk, Hornet. For these, use the Killstack anoint. CLASS MOD Phasezerker, ideally with points into Anima for that extra dot damage, but it's not too important. Prioritize passives: splash damage, splash damage radius, cooldown, weapon damage, weapon critical damage. That splash damage passive will make Remnant and Indiscriminate double dip harder. The Phasezerker is ideal for this build because it will stack up a lot of Do Harm for our TTB links and Remnant. It does this by its special Rush stacking nature, and because the cooldown it provides will keep our TTB cycling quickly. It also provides some much needed gun damage. SHIELD Corrosive Old God, with ASE Apply Terror anoint. The corrosive elemental damage increase provided by the Old God will get double dipped by our three important skills. ARTIFACT Flesh Melter Victory Rush. This is why we only use corrosive guns and corrosive action skill element. The Victory Rush part isn't essential. A purple Flesh Melter with great passives will beat an average Flesh Melter Victory Rush. The passives you're looking for are corrosive damage and AoE damage, with cooldown closely behind those two. The Flesh Melter is an absurd amount of corrosive damage when fully stacked up. This, of course, makes us lean even harder into the "need more than one enemy" linchpin of this build, but we're already in too deep. The only way out is through. Turns out, there's hardly any relevant end game fights where you have just a boss and no mobs to work with. GRENADE Fish Slap, in radiation, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. Because all of our other damage is pure corrosive, we need something to take out those corrosive immune Maliwan heavies. Even if it's just to deliver Groundbreaker. (You could also just switch elements on your Beacon, but whatever.) The Terror Dmg will get double dipped by our skills. GAMEPLAY LOOP You grasp. You shoot. You destroy. Indeed, that's the gist of it. The whole idea here is to make it simple to raid boss. There's no elaborate setup or anything; you just wait. You grasp the boss and wait for an add to get linked up, then you shoot the boss. Remnant kills the boss. Ok, there's a *little* more to it. One important thing to know is that Remnant targets the enemy closest to you. So before shooting that raid boss with a mob linked, make sure you're kinda close. But not close enough to splash yourself, of course. You'll find the same sort of thing happening often during regular mobbing. You grasp and shoot an enemy, then all other nearby enemies die, and Remnant drifts toward the original grasped enemy and obliterates it. In scenarios where waiting a few seconds gives you extra enemies, then wait. Notable example here is the first few phases of Wotan. Wait for him to spawn some adds before you attack his shields. That way, you can utilize TTB and get Flesh Melter stacks. Versus the Seer, step in the water and wait for guardians to approach. You get the idea. Otherwise, this doesn't play much differently than a normal red/blue TTB gun build. But you will see tons and tons of large damage numbers. It will definitely be weaker in single target scenarios and/or when your buffs have worn off. But that's what strong guns like the Plaguebearer and Backburner and Beacon are for. Or, if you're quick enough, Groundbreaker can be utilized on that lone enemy. If the somewhat weaker single target damage is too frustrating for you, consider the alternative loadout... NOTES - ALTERNATIVE LOADOUT Swap out your Phasezerker for a Spiritual Driver (with points into Mindfulness, same recommended passives) and your Flesh Melter for an Elemental Projector. Again, the artifact doesn't need to be a Victory Rush, but it helps. Prioritize passives: corrosive damage, AoE, cooldown. This setup will have less reliable raid bossing ability when utilizing Ties That Bind and Remnant, but it will have much better single target damage. NOTES - HEMOVOROUS Indiscriminate and Remnant make this fight pretty fun. You can pew pew at Vermi, and Indiscriminate will chunk Hemo if he's nearby. Or just spam a Recursion. Stay somewhat close and Remnant will track them, although there's still a chance it gets thrown off by all of the little bugs in the fight. Their red HP phases are probably the only time you might consider switching your action skill element to fire, using a fire weapon, and using the Driver/Projector loadout. NOTES - OTHER BOSSES As mentioned above, there's hardly any relevant end game fights where you have just a boss and no mobs to work with. Bosses like Anathema and Scourge initially start alone, but just wait 5-10 seconds and mobs will appear and you can begin doing work. Spawn mobs in the Seer arena by walking in the water. Spongeboss can be lured out by the Spiderants. Etc.

The big list. The Builds READ OR DIE. Well, kind of. A lot of these builds require lengthy explanations in order to be properly understood and played. Playing a build improperly may result in a bad time. Most of these builds require intermediate to expert level experience with the Borderlands 3 endgame. If you're not quite at that point, perhaps head over to the Tips section for help. It is assumed that you know how the anointments function, that you have all Guardian Rank perks unlocked, and have a basic understanding of the damage formula. All gameplay footage of Takedowns are in True Takedown mode. Gun Builds Acidwolf Hidden Tiger Queen Mida s Inferno Amara Nightmare Amara Leeloo Dallas Multi-tap Amara Dot Gun Amara Dot Crit Barbie Dahl Phasewalker Cold Hearted Ragebow Beeg Badaboom Agent Amara Mother Chuckin' Amara Action Skill Builds Supernatural Amara Meteor Amara Sorceress Queen Hybrid Builds Fission Amara Oblivion Amara Lame Faker Amara True Melee Builds Emerald Swan Ruby Swan Sapphire Swan Golden Swan Sulphur Swan Steel Swan Amber Swan Antimatter Swan Stone Swan Slam Builds Gone Fission Amara Icicle Amara Magmamara Teslamara Other Builds Phase Yeet Boomfist Amara Dot Com Unreal Amara

Peak single-target true melee. High survivability (for a true melee build). Radsplosions. What else can you ask for? Sulphur Swan SYNOPSIS Formerly the peak single-target true melee (since eclipsed by Steel Swan ). High survivability (for a true melee build). Radsplosions. What else can you ask for? INTRO Can true melee defeat a raid boss? Can the White Elephant hit for billions of damage after being applied by a punch? It's kinda surprising, but the answer to both of those questions is: kinda... yeah. Here we have the first build added to this site after the site's launch. And oh boy did it give all the other true melee builds a run for their money. This build emerged when I tried to build around the Zheitsev's Eruption. The Eruption's reload debuff effect is extremely powerful. And being a debuff, it is a damage multiplier that is double-dipped by any double-dipping effect. Like, say, the White Elephant or the Static Charge. The White Elephant was heavily nerfed a long time ago, but if you throw enough damage formula at it, the double-dipping effect overcomes that nerf. The Static Charge has always been strong, and this build uses it very effectively, but its strength shines more in multi-target scenarios. Perhaps most importantly, this build fills in a gap that most other true melee builds on the site have left: it has radsplosions. Lots of them. (Although Golden Swan is now part of that club.) And it has pretty great survivability. And it can boss, too, so what's the catch? Just a slightly odd gameplay loop as you work with the Eruption's effect. But don't worry, it'll only take a run or two to get used to. GAMEPLAY VIDEO SKILL TREE SKILL TREE NOTES Max Do Harm, one point into Infusion, but no Body & Mind? You don't need it, and it can even be detrimental if you're trying to see if your punch stuck a White Elephant bomb to your enemy. Personal Space on a melee build? Personal Space applies to guns/bullets, and the ASE 50% bonus element anointment that you'll have on your grenade always counts as a "bullet". ASE 50% bonus elements apply to Groundbreaker. With all of your buffs going, your total Groundbreaker damage (including the bonus element) is going to be 7+ times as strong as the damage that built it up in the first place. That's right, this build can take Groundbreaker from 10% of the initial damage to 700+%. So, very indirectly, Personal Space is actually quite a large damage increase for your punches. Do Harm is to buff Phaseslam a bit, and Infusion is for a little bit of lifesteal when using the Face Puncher. Max swap speed is important, but no extra reload speed beyond that (no Alacrity). You want to swap to and from your Eruption often, but you also don't want it to complete its reload animation. ACTION SKILL Phaseslam. Technically, any action skill can be used. But Phaseslam will be the most effective because it will: kickstart your damage, stack Samsara, immediately proc your bonus element anointment, keep your Terror anoints cycling, proc a bit of Expedite, and stagger/ragdoll enemies. ACTION SKILL ELEMENT Whatever is suited to the content you are facing, except Cryo. It's a Driver build. DEBUFFING GUN The Zheitsev's Eruption, in radiation only , with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. The work horse of the build. The Terror Dmg anointment will get double dipped by your White Elephant (and Static Charge). Upon starting its reload/repair animation, the Eruption sends out 8 homing splash projectiles at nearby enemies. Each projectile debuffs an enemy for 20% increased damage from all sources for 6 seconds. The animation can be cancelled by the typical means: meleeing, throwing a grenade, using your action skill, swapping, mantling, etc. When the animation begins again, the projectiles get sent out again, except if you cancelled it via melee. All other cancellation methods will reproc the projectiles. So the easiest and most consistent way to reproc the projectiles is by swapping to and away from the Eruption. This is totally fine, because then you get to swap to your punching gun... PUNCHING GUN The Guardian Angel, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. No, not the Psycho Stabber, although it's not half bad. The Guardian Angel will add another multiplier for the White Elephant (and Static Charge) to double dip. It's also the gun you hold if you want Phaseslam to do some damage and get you Expedite stacks (you generally want this). FFYL /FLYING ENEMY GUN Face Puncher, with Terror Dmg/Fire Rate anointment. You can also shoot the Guardian Angel at enemies if you're down, and Indiscriminate will have a good chance of getting you back up. CLASS MOD Spiritual Driver, mostly for proccing Elemental Projector with your action skill element. Mindfulness points are also useful for maneuverability and closing the gap. Recommended passives: action skill cooldown, action skill damage, melee damage, splash damage, splash damage radius. Getting a large splash radius means Phaseslam hits more enemies and White Elephant stickies can hit more than just the enemy they're stuck to. Protip: turn dialog volume all the way down if you do not wish to hear Amara screaming from self-dots all of the time. You can actually run lots of other class mods, though they will be less effective than the Driver: Golden Rule with points into Laid Bare and Mindfulness for a bit of damage and faster cooldown, Stone with points into Awakening and Do Harm, Muse with any skill points, Breaker with Find Your Center and preferably no points into Personal Space, Dragon with a point into Remnant. All of the same recommended passives. SHIELD Red Suit, preferably with two Roid augments, with ASE Apply Terror anointment. The Eruption reload projectiles are splash, and would down you without this shield, especially since you're following the projectiles toward the enemy and ideally boosting splash radius. ARTIFACT Elemental Projector White Elephant. You can also use an Elemental Projector Static Charge for pretty similar results most of the time. However, the White Elephant is what's needed to take down big bosses. The Static Charge will provide more consistency in mobbing and for bosses with lots of adds (like Wotan). The only time the Static Charge truly outshines the White Elephant on this build is when mobbing with Guardians in the Guardian Takedown. Recommended passives: action skill cooldown, area-of-effect damage in the 2nd or 3rd slot (so it also increases area radius), melee damage, elemental damage, move speed. GRENADE Fish Slap, in radiation, with ASE 50% radiation damage anointment. Both aspects are pretty important. Radiation element Fish so that it gets boosted by Elemental Projector. You will almost always have a radiation dot on you (that won't damage you thanks to the Red Suit) from the Eruption projectiles. The Red Suit will also protect you from your Fish, as long as you have the White Elephant and not the Static Charge equipped. Your ASE 50% radiation bonus element will get added to your Groundbreaker when you punch, and it will be even further boosted by Elemental Projector. You're building Groundbreaker all the time via your Red Suit's aura, your White Elephant stickies (or Static Charge chains), Phaseslam, and the Eruption projectiles. This bonus element, when coupled with the Driver self-dot, will also stack Burn Both Ends for you. GAMEPLAY LOOP Before engaging in combat, shoot your Eruption until it overheats, then swap away to your Guardian Angel before the repair animation gets any further. Now it's primed for debuffing. Whenever you swap back to your overheated Eruption, a set of projectiles will get sent out and debuff enemies. (No projectiles will proc if there are no enemies around.) When entering combat, Phaseslam into some mobs while holding the Guardian Angel. Swap back to the Eruption briefly one or two times to send out one or two sets of debuffing projectiles. Then punch 1 or 3 enemies to death. Back to the Eruption again, then back to punching. Keep in mind, the debuff lasts 6 seconds, so you do need to be swapping back to the Eruption pretty often. Luckily, your relatively short window of actual punching will be very productive. Phaseslam with the Guardian Angel in your hand when it's available. Throw a Fish at enemies that are immune to your action skill element. Face Puncher annoying flying enemies. Feel free to follow your Eruption projectiles to the enemy. You want them to proc a radiation dot on you for your Elemental Projector. Standing directly next to an enemy and sending projectiles into them isn't the craziest idea. You have great survivability with the Red Suit aura and Eruption projectiles giving you steady healing with Sustainment. Samsara will pull its weight if you Phaseslammed effectively. You will sometimes get jostled around with this build. Both because you're true melee and because the Eruption projectile explosions can push you a little bit. Just persevere and punch when you can; you'll be fine. NOTES - GUARDIAN TAKEDOWN There are a few areas in the Guardian Takedown where piloting a true melee build can be very risky, for various reasons. For this build, during both crystal phases and during the last mobbing section before Scourge, take a break from the true melee for a while, lest you get overrun and/or knocked off. Instead, continually jump while alternating between reloading the Eruption and shooting the Guardian Angel at enemies. Phaseslam when available. Throw Fish if you feel like it. Maybe when you're on your last crystal you can start punching again, if you want. NOTES - RAID BOSSING The setup for raid bossing with the White Elephant is as follows. Set your action skill element appropriately and make sure the Eruption is overheated. Start with a volley of projectiles from the Eruption, then immediately follow it up with your action skill. You can use Phaseslam or base Phasecast or base Grasp. All you really need it to do is to proc your Elemental Projector and anoints. Once the Eruption is back in your hand, another set of projectiles will proc. Immediately swap to your Guardian Angel, punch 2 or 3 times, and step away. Hopefully, you attached a White Elephant sticky or two. If a sticky of a favorable element gets attached, there's potential for massive damage. If a sticky of massive damage procced, run back up again and punch for Groundbreaker. If not, or after you have punched for Groundbreaker, repeat the process, except your action skill is now on cooldown. Swap to the Eruption a couple times for a couple sets of projectiles, then punch 2 or 3 times again and back away. When your action skill is done cooling down, repeat the whole process. White Elephant is chance-based, of course, but this build is still able to take down raid bosses in a reasonable time frame, in my opinion. NOTES - HEMOVOROUS If you have patience, you can actually punch/White Elephant Hemo to death. Problem is, he's very hard to land a punch on. You have to go for his legs. Keep in mind he will move his legs to both face you and attack you as you approach. It's tough, but doable. You will need to Fish him during his flying phase, though.